TRANSFORMERS TOYS AND MERCHANDISE SECTION

electro girl's review: Recon Barricade

Name: BarricadeFaction: DecepticonFunction: Infiltration

In disguise, Barricade works with Decepticon Frenzy to infiltrate Autobot defenses!

Recon Barricade was an impulse buy for me, I passed him in the supermarket and put 'im in the trolley and that was pretty much it. Recon Barricade is a movie line repaint and is a repaint of, you guessed it Barricade.

VEHICLE MODE:

In the film Barricade is an American police car in the standard black and white colours, but here he is a silver and blue private security service vehicle.

So Barricade is now a silver and blue Saleen Mustang with a big Decepticon logo on the side, presumably for infiltrating Autobot defences? He still has To punish and enslave on his side its just a bit less obvious. The bulk of he colour in this mode is the silver that covers most of the body work, the blue come in the form of a thick stripe around the car that is broken up with the con logo on the doors and the black front bumper cover/guard thing. It is this front thing that house his minicon partner, Frenzy, who is shown in this mode as Barricades front grill, you'd hardly know he's there the little scamp. The windows are clear plastic with silver painted on for the roof with the exception of the rear windows which are strait silver plastic. The wheels are black plastic and the light bar on his roof is clear blue plastic.

This mode is full of details that make it very believable as an automobile instead of a Transformer with a car style alt mode. It's teeming with grills, door handles and side mirrors.

However there is a major gripe with this mode that isn't restricted to just my toy and that is the wheels, They very rarely touch the ground all at the same time like a conventional automobile, rather they behave like an erratic shopping trolley.

ROBOT MODE:
Theoretically the transformation should be fairly simple, its just arms at the side and legs at the back. That's pretty much how it goes with just a bit more tweaking, the hardest part is probably turning him back into a car.

When you open his chest in this mode out comes Frenzy much like the cassettes of yore and similar to those days of yore, in the film Frenzy is a music device, this is not the case with the toy were his alt mode is Barricades front grill. Not to worry though if you do want him to be the boom box then you can always buy the hideous fast action battler. Oh and he's electric blue with long legs which I find kinda funny looking so I don't have him out much.

Barricades stance and stature are pretty similar to his live action self with his tall shoulders and sticky out side windows making him all threatening, and to me the cons should be threatening.

My problem with this mode is the hands, hell the LOC version has better ones, he has an opposable thumb but his fingers are lazily molded to the inside of the car body and look a bit tacky.

Bluicade lacks an automorph but instead has a spring loaded punch on his left arm and is fairly powerful, it packs a punch! (groan, oh yes, I went there)

So this is a good figure but if you already have Barricade or Premium barricade then you probably shouldn't get one unless you really really want to. Its not without its noticeable bad points and the colour may not be for everyone but I'd never tell anyone not to buy it.

MARKS OUT OF TEN FOR THE FOLLOWING:Transformation: 6- Pretty simple but getting it back to car mode can be a pain.Durability: 8- Mines not breaking anytime soon but the windows may come off if you drop him from high up.Fun: 8- punchy punch punch! plus minicon.Price: 8- £10 Standard deluxe, move along.Overall: 8- A scary robot with a iddy biddy scary robot that looks good from behind for some reason.